Monday, December 12, 2016

Five fantasy novels with perfect opening lines

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

Character often works better than setting as the subject of a stirring first line, but here Gibson uses an image so stark, arresting, and memorable that we can both clearly visualize the gray, drab world as well as sense the flat monotony of a new dystopia. Though the image itself is bleak and stagnant, that itself is the point: already we’re asking the question what kind of hero can rise above it.